Lanford Wilson (April 13, 1937 – March 24, 2011) was an American playwright. His work, as described by The New York Times, was "earthy, realist, greatly admired [and] widely performed." Wilson also helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement with his earliest plays, which were first produced in New York at the Caffe Cino beginning in 1964. He was one of the first playwrights to move from Off-Off-Broadway, to Off-Broadway, then Broadway, and beyond. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980 and was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame. In 2004, Wilson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a Master American Dramatist. He was nominated for three Tony Awards and has won a Drama Desk Award and five Obie Awards.
